The Dictionary of Lost Words

In this historical novel, Esme spends her childhood in Oxford where her father is a lexicographer helping create the first Oxford English Dictionary. As the team of men debate which words should be included or omitted, Esme gathers the discarded words and discovers that words associated with women are often left out. While she publicly works on the Oxford English Dictionary, she secretly starts another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. With a backdrop of the suffrage movement and looming war, this inventive story explores the power of words and what we all lose when history is only recorded by men.